How Many Plays?

I coach line for a team that has boys from 8 - 11 YOA. The head coach had over 50 plays in the playbook last year, none of which were diagramed for the boys. This year I got him to cut to 32 plays for the first game and I diagramed them out for the team. Now he wants to add 7 more plays and says he has plans to add 5-10 playes for each week of the season. I'm just wondering how many plays do most teams of this age have? I talked to a coach that was on the team that won the division last year and he said they had 6 running plays and two passing plays. They focused on running the plays to perfection and building skills. My feeling is that 32 plays is a lot for little boys to remember. FYI, we dominated the first game at the line on both sides even though we are smaller.

I coach line for a team that has boys from 8 - 11 YOA. The head coach had over 50 plays in the playbook last year, none of which were diagramed for the boys. This year I got him to cut to 32 plays for the first game and I diagramed them out for the team. Now he wants to add 7 more plays and says he has plans to add 5-10 playes for each week of the season. I'm just wondering how many plays do most teams of this age have? I talked to a coach that was on the team that won the division last year and he said they had 6 running plays and two passing plays. They focused on running the plays to perfection and building skills. My feeling is that 32 plays is a lot for little boys to remember. FYI, we dominated the first game at the line on both sides even though we are smaller.

Hello Coach...I feel that is way too many plays.......i think anything over 20-25 plays is too much for this age group........I am an ac this year and the hc has a playbook of 50 plus........we are10-11's .......and most of the time our backfield is either lined up wrong....or do not know whos in motion or where to run.....it is ridiculous . ...good luck this season BW

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Posted 11 September 2011 - 09:17 AM

I coach line for a team that has boys from 8 - 11 YOA. The head coach had over 50 plays in the playbook last year, none of which were diagramed for the boys. This year I got him to cut to 32 plays for the first game and I diagramed them out for the team. Now he wants to add 7 more plays and says he has plans to add 5-10 playes for each week of the season. I'm just wondering how many plays do most teams of this age have? I talked to a coach that was on the team that won the division last year and he said they had 6 running plays and two passing plays. They focused on running the plays to perfection and building skills. My feeling is that 32 plays is a lot for little boys to remember. FYI, we dominated the first game at the line on both sides even though we are smaller.

I think from the tone of your post you know that answer is that it is too many, execution beats scheme every time. 8 - 11 is a huge and inappropriate age spread. I can't imagine many 8 year old's being able to compete with 11 year old's. A great way for them to get hurt IMO.

I think 7-8 you have 2 closely related formations with 2 pass plays growing to maybe 4 as the season progresses and 4 run plays growing to maybe 8 as season progresses. You don't really need more than 6 - 8 run plays at any level, you vary them with formations and motion as you advance in age.

9-10 you can do 2 formations growing to 3 formations and you can add a simple passing tree. You can also start traps and pulls at this age.

11-12 you can do 3 formations (I never do more than 3 at the youth level, I actually do 2 with simple word adjustments for positions like invert, tight or wide) and you can add more complex plays like screens and shovel passes and deeper routes. I am coaching an 11 and 12 year old team this year we already have 5 TD passes in 2 games.

I agree with royal flush.....we have a sweep, power, counter, trap, screen and a play action pass. You do not need many plays you need a series of plays that all work off each other. I have 12 plays (counting them running to both RT and LT) but I have two formations that I use....depending on the defense we are facing game day. 12 plays running out of two formations. 50 plays crazy.

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I agree with everything the posters before me said, too many plays equals confusion and i'd rather run 12 plays great than run 25 sloppy ones. I coach 5-7 year olds and run about 12 plays and we run them as close to perfect as 5-7 year olds can run plays. There is a former NFL player coaching in my league, he has 3-4 formations and i'm guessing he wouldnt install a formation unless he had 3 or 4 plays per formation, needless to say his team's record is 1-6 right now while my team has a record of 6-1. I know for a fact that this coach knows way more about football than I do but think he fell into the trap alot of coaches do and over complicated things, KISS (Keep it simple stupid) is a good approach.

If you follow any youth coaching forum (as you are right now), ALL good coaches will tell you the same thing that the previous respondants said. Fifty plays is WAY TOO MANY!

Here is my anaysis for 8 to 11 year olds (elementary school kids):

1. Find a series that is FIRST a run-oriented series with SIMPLE blocking rules (like G.O.D.) and has some pulling by an atheletic guard. Pulling is something that you can teach and that makes it fun for the kids while getting more blockers at the point of attack!

2. The series you pick should focus on the "off-tackle" area as this is the point of attack that is the hardest to defend for the defense because they will have the LEAST defenders here while you will have the MOST blockers (pulling linemen & lead RB blockers). Off-tackle is also an area where you can install simple "adjustments" to what the defense does to you while still being able to run the off-tackle play.

3. Your series should include only 5-6 plays out of your "base" blocking rules (e.g. G.O.D.). If you have 2 or 3 blocking rules you are going to confuse your offensive linemen! Now you work off of your "base" blocking rules when you run a pass, trap, or reverse play - but the basic blocking for most linemen stays the same.

4. The 5 base running plays I would recommend (run these to PERFECTION & you need nothing else):

Power off-tackle

Counter/Reverse (sometimes called Power Reverse)

Inside Trap (w/ pulling guard)

Sweep (if you have the speed to get outside)

Wedge (looks funny, but a great play if you get the blocking down right!)

5. Now add a pass play (or maybe 2) into the mix - just to keep the defense honest

6. Run these 5 running plays and your pass out of your "base" formation (e.g. unbalanced Single Wing), THEN when you PERFECT them, add a 2nd formation/motion set (e.g. Full-Spin Single Wing - which is just the same base 5 plays but now with backfield meshing & motion). You can do MORE HARM to a defense by adding formation/motion sets than by adding more plays. The defense "thinks" you are adding more with the "formationing" & they start to "fly around" pre-snap trying to adjust to your new formations. While on offense YOU know really nothing new is really being done from an execution standpoint -SIMPLE!

The Progression

Now with all of this in mind, you have to teach in a step-by-step progression for these kids! Follow me:

1. Show the kids in a "Chalk-Talk" session - WHO & WHY (take off the helmets and sit down and explain it first.)2. Walk through it - use coaches and dads to "show" the kids what you want them to do (HOW we do it!) - also, ask the kids "now Johnny you are our right tackle, who do you block with this 5-3 defensive front & why are you blocking him?" Teach the specific blocking technique(s) you want the boys to use & have them demonstrate it for you so you see that they understand all the steps.3. Run through all the blocking techniques and rules at "half speed" against a "mock" defensive front (check for correct execution)4. Run through again at "half speed" now including blocking shields & dummies at the various points of attack5. If you feel confident of their knowledge at this point, you can now run your blocking schemes ("tags/calls") at full speed.6. Eventually you bring the linemen & backs TOGETHER to run plays that you have worked on in "indy" sessions. For example, say your backs have been working on the installation of their Off-tackle Power play (steps, backfield blocks, etc.) and the line has also worked on the Off-tackle blocking (tags/calls) for that point of attack and BOTH units have essentially mastered their assignments. Now you can bring BOTH units together to see how they work TOGETHER to execute the Off-tackle play aganst a scout defense!

Summary

The problem is that coaches try often to be too "fancy" and show off what they know and this becomes a large playbook that the kids CANNOT execute with any success. Instead, coaches need to realize that these are very young kids with very short attention spans & limited memory capacity. So focus on the fundamentals of your base blocking scheme, blocking techniques, tackling techniques. the basic play steps using the progression model I outlined.